[William A. Baurle]

Since it's National Nurse's Week, and since I've worked in nursing homes and in healthcare all my life, and since we have at least 2 nurses here who are also poets, Eileen Cleary and Steve Bucknell, I thought it appropriate to start a thread about my favorite nurse (Eileen & Steve being very close seconds ):

Florence Nightingale

She would sometimes comfort those in her care with this view. For example, a dying young prostitute being tended by Nightingale was concerned she was going to hell and said to her 'Pray God, that you may never be in the despair I am in at this time'. The nurse replied "Oh, my girl, are you not now more merciful than the God you think you are going to? Yet the real God is far more merciful than any human creature ever was or can ever imagine." - Wikipedia

The little girl who the other day ran back across the railway and snatched two babies whom she saw in danger, “crashing them down,” as a bystander said, “between herself” and the safe platform, giving herself to certain death under the advancing engine but saving the babes without a scratch. She was a greater preacher of righteousness and of the ways of God than all the fathers of the Church who ever were born to write. - Florence Nightingale.

[Siham Karami]

These two quotes, William, are the best possible way I can imagine to start my day. Yes indeed, Florence Nightingale not only deserves to be remembered, but her life enriches the life of anyone who remembers her. Not to mention her wonderful take on the meaning of God and religion. Sorely missing in many quarters these days. Having to be, in a sense, a nurse in the course of my daily life these days (not trained or professional, though, but appreciated by other nurses at least), I am also grateful to you for starting such a thread.

Best,
Siham

[William A. Baurle]

Thanks, Siham, and God bless you. I'm surprised no-one else has dropped in here yet. I didn't know much about FN until the other night when I saw something about her and looked her up. She was an amazing woman, an amazing person, and spoke frankly about her take on Christianity, religion, and faith. Like a lot of great people of faith, she went through Hell. People should read of her efforts during the Crimean War, and this during a time when nursing was in a primitive state and there were virtually no supplies or facilities required to do the task properly. Most of the 38 nurses enlisted to go with her to Turkey were dismissed, and a few of them died.

As I keep saying here, in general, people would do well to research the lives of people they have only vaguely heard about, people whose names have become legendary, but whose works have been largely trivialized or forgotten. The activities director at the Assisted Living facility I work at thought Florence Nightingale was a famous singer. Some people think of her as a fictional character!

I hope more people add to this thread...

[Julie Steiner]

Here's Florence Nightingale's famous graph, showing that war wounds were a nearly-insignificant cause of British deaths in the Crimean War, when compared with cholera, typhus, and dysentery. (The Charge of the Light Brigade was in October 1854--barely a blip.)

[Eileen Cleary]

Hi Bill.

Thanks.

Florence Nightingale was the first nurse statistician and researcher. This allowed her to reduce mortality by noting that the men near standing water and in dirty tents had poorer prognoses than those who weren't.

Walt Whitman was a nurse during the Civil War.
Eileen